Japan: More than manga
Japanese culture mesmerizes the West by rejecting dichotomies and differences that may seem irreconcilable between opposites and suggesting their coexistence instead
Estrella de Diego
27 January 2024
For decades, manga has been gaining traction in European markets and has given rise to a thriving territory of fairs, passions, heroes, costumes, holograms… even fictional sexual relationships between people and fictional characters, such as the one between Akihiko Kondoy and virtual singer Hatsune Miku, until the company in charge disconnected her from its servers and some began to speak of Kondoy as “the first digital widower.” Perhaps manga fans intuit that metaspace of bends and apparent paradoxes... in which nothing is impossible, and we feel comfortable: it’s a space built on contradictions. Or at least they are contradictions for Western binary logic, which is now governed by some very unpopular dichotomies: male/female, white/black, full/empty, animate/inanimate, death/life... In fact, Japanese culture — including manga — offers infinite loopholes that allow us to never just be one thing forever. It suggests the pleasant coexistence of opposites: that which is no longer and that which has not yet ceased to be.
